You Can Order Hundreds of Drone Strikes and Still Be Called ‘Wet Nurse’ of Terrorism

John Brennan delivers a briefing to Barack Obama in the Oval Office on May 3, 2010. Photo: Pete Souza/White House

To some, John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, is the bureaucratic equivalent of the angel of death. As Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, Brennan presides over the secret rules that authorize the CIA and the military to kill suspected terrorists. Yet there’s a small but vocal contingent of self-appointed counterterrorism experts who consider Brennan the “wet nurse” of Islamic extremism — despite all the terrorist deaths he’s helped authorize.

Brennan has been Obama’s single most important adviser for shaping the campaign of drone strikes and commando raids that have become the centerpiece of the president’s national security strategy. He operates the so-called “disposition matrix,” a secret list compiling intelligence on terrorism suspects and options for killing or, less often, capturing them. Brennan, a former top CIA official, is the one who brings Obama the names of specific suspects for presidential approval. He’s also acted as a de facto ambassador to Yemen, a crucial battlefield for the drone campaign.

Accordingly, Brennan’s nomination is attracting criticism even before Obama announces it on Monday afternoon. Mary Ellen O’Connell, an international law expert at the University of Notre Dame, sent out a statement urging the Senate to vote against sending Brennan to the CIA on the grounds that the drone program is among “the most highly unlawful and immoral practices the United States has ever undertaken.” Council on Foreign Relations scholar Micah Zenko doesn’t explicitly oppose Brennan’s nomination, but called the claim that the drone strikes haven’t killed civilians “preposterous and in no way supported by reality.” Brennan withdrew as Obama’s choice to head the CIA once before, in 2008, when he came under criticism for alleged involvement in the CIA’s Bush-era torture efforts.

But as much as Brennan has become synonymous with the drone strikes, in some quarters, he’s considered a terrorism apologist.

Brennan’s potential move to the CIA should be a revealing moment for Obama’s second term. Former directors of the CIA have recently expressed concern that the agency is over-invested in killing terrorists at the expense of its traditional spying roles. Others advocate giving the military control of the CIA’s drone program as a measure to increase transparency around it. Brennan has run the disposition matrix as a White House staffer, and White House staffers don’t have to testify before Congress. Before Brennan returns to Langley, he’ll have to explain to the Senate intelligence committee how he’ll run the CIA — which could provide a rare moment of public exploration of the most lethal program the U.S. government operates.

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